‘Putin wants all of Ukraine’ Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Vance’s message in Munich, Kyiv’s options, and Moscow’s long game
In the past week, negotiations over a possible ceasefire settlement in Ukraine have started unfolding at a dramatic pace. After U.S. President Donald Trump’s unexpected call with Vladimir Putin on February 12, statements from Trump’s team sent shockwaves through Kyiv, leaving officials reeling. The issue dominated the Munich Security Conference, prompting E.U. leaders to hold an emergency meeting in Paris over fears of exclusion from U.S.-Russia talks. On February 18, Russian and American representatives met in Saudi Arabia to begin negotiations — without Ukraine’s participation. A day earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that Kyiv had not been informed of the talks and would not recognize their outcome. For more insight into how the Ukrainian authorities are likely feeling about the sudden shift in U.S.-Russia relations and the future of the war, BBC News Russian spoke to former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on the sidelines of the Munich conference.
The fact that Russian and U.S. officials met for negotiations in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday might seem to suggest that the war has been costly enough for Moscow that the Kremlin is now prepared to make some unpalatable concessions. According to former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, however, this isn’t the case — and a lasting peace isn’t even on the table.
“Right now, if you listen to Trump and his team, they’re talking specifically about a ceasefire,” he told BBC News Russian. “As for a truce, we’re nowhere near that — it’s a long way off, to put it mildly.”
This, he explained, is because Russian President Vladimir Putin “still believes he can outmaneuver everyone”:
[He thinks] that time is on his side, fate is on his side, the West is wavering, the U.S. is pulling back, and Europe either can’t step onto the field in America’s place — or, to put it more generously, isn’t ready to step into the captain’s shoes.
Moreover, in Kuleba’s view, Putin’s idea of victory doesn’t just mean maintaining the Ukrainian territories that Russia has occupied so far — it means controlling “all of Ukraine.” “He didn’t come for just a piece of land — he came for Ukraine itself,” he said.
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For this reason, Kuleba praised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s efforts to convince Europe to takes the Russian threat more seriously, such as by calling attention to Moscow’s planned buildup of troops in Belarus. “This is exactly what Ukraine should be saying,” he told the BBC. “We have no alternative, and I think the president is doing the right thing. The real question is whether those we’re addressing actually hear us.”
‘No real deal is possible’
At the Munich Security Conference, Ukraine may have received some unexpected help in its efforts to give Europe a wake-up call — in the form of U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance.
In a fiery speech arguing that Europe’s biggest threat comes “from within,” Vance chastised E.U. leaders for excluding far-right parties, allowing mass migration, and abandoning “some of its most fundamental values.” According to Kuleba, Vance’s lecture shocked Europe’s political establishment and strengthened Ukraine’s case — showing that the U.S. has “shifted its position” not only on Ukraine but on “Europe itself.”
The current U.S. administration isn’t just attacking some abstract concept of Europe — they’re targeting the political elites currently in power. Essentially, they’re saying: all of you who are in charge now shouldn’t be. You should step aside for those who belong to our civilization. In their view, it’s not “Europe and America as one civilization.” It’s Trump’s team, Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD), Marine Le Pen, and other right-wing forces — they represent a single civilization. European politicians reacted so strongly to J.D. Vance’s remarks because they saw and heard a direct threat — not just to Europe as a whole, but to their own positions, their very presence in politics.
Multiple officials and observers have criticized the Trump administration for allegedly making concessions to Moscow before negotiations have even begun — for example, by stating that Ukraine’s NATO membership is “unlikely or impractical.” Kuleba agreed that Trump’s team should have held their cards closer but argued the new U.S. president hasn’t actually said anything new about NATO.
“Biden’s position was essentially the same. Trump might not like hearing this, but in reality, he’s just continuing Biden’s policy — only in a more blunt and straightforward manner,” he said.
At the same time, Kuleba noted that no Ukrainian leader could ever sign a document formally giving up Ukrainian territory or NATO aspirations, as this would violate the country’s constitution. However, commenting on Trump envoy Keith Kellogg’s recent statement that there will likely “be a certain agreement on the potential loss of territory” in Ukraine but that Kyiv doesn’t “have to admit it,” Kuleba said that diplomacy is about “keeping things vague enough to allow room for interpretation.”
But that’s not the real issue here. The fundamental question is: what does Putin want? I believe he wants all of Ukraine. I believe he sees the complete destruction of Ukraine as the only real guarantee that it won’t join NATO. And he knows this. Because he doesn’t trust the West — he’s convinced they’ll betray him, just as he believes they always have.
Trump, on the other hand, “believes you can strike a deal with Putin, draw a line, and make him stop,” Kuleba argued. “As long as this fundamental disagreement exists, no real deal is possible.”
Instead, he said, Ukraine needs to “be upfront” about the reality of any ceasefire deal by saying, “Folks, we’re not ending the war, we’re just exhausted,” while at the same time being “fully aware that this is just the prelude to the next war — and we need to start preparing for it now.”
A recurring pattern
Another statement from Trump’s envoy about a potential ceasefire was that “both sides will give a little bit.” However, most of the discussion about a future deal has seemed to focus on concessions from Kyiv. Asked what Ukraine should demand from Russia, Kuleba began listing possible conditions, including withdrawal from Ukrainian territory, eventual Ukrainian E.U. and NATO membership, and financial compensation for the war’s economic damage.
When the BBC’s correspondent suggested these concessions aren’t likely “in the real world,” Kuleba pushed back: “In the real world, we can’t lower the bar on our demands. That’s the essence of negotiations. Ukraine has no reason to start by saying what it’s willing to give up.”
He went on to put Russia’s current invasion of Ukraine in a wider context:
Our history follows the same pattern over and over. First, we lose our state. Then an occupier comes in and either destroys us, assimilates us, or buys us off. It’s happened before. Poland did it in the 17th century and earlier. The Russian Empire did it. Bolshevik Russia did it. The Russian Federation is doing it now.
And if someone thinks, ‘Let’s just stop this at any cost — if we stop fighting, there won’t be another Bucha, another Mariupol. No more towns and villages razed to the ground. No more torture. No people having the trident carved out of their skin’ — no. That’s exactly what will happen if we lose our state.
This, Kuleba argued, leaves Ukraine with only two options for survival: either building up its military to match Russia’s or fully integrating into the West. The first option, he said, would require mobilizing “essentially the whole country” — about 1.5 million troops — since every soldier requires support from multiple civilians on the front line. “It would mean a cultural shift where no one can say, ‘I donate, so I don’t have to fight,’” he said.
The problem with this approach, he continued, is that Ukraine’s Western partners have already shown they won’t provide the necessary funding — which leaves only one option: joining the West. “Yes, we can criticize the West all we want. But history has shown us that it’s our only real option — because the ‘third way’ would require transformations that neither we nor the West are ready for,” he concluded.
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